Paragrams.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 5, 1 March 1906, Page 100

Paragrams.

" Swapping horses " used to be more common than now. Exchanging cars is a practice some motorists with a love of novelty and change are trying to inaugurate. ****** Queen Margherita of Italy intends next year to make an incognito motor tour from New York to San Francisco, where she and her suite of cars will embark for Japan, which she will " do " thoroughly by motor. ****** The Paris Herald, commenting on the Olympia Show, says, " the people were pushing and shoving as though they were taking part m a football match, and I am sorry to say the well-dressed women were as bad as the men." ****** The Italian Government offers a subsidy of 500 lire (£2O) for each f ths of a mile opened to the transport by motor of passengers or merchandise. In Great Britain a new line of motor omnibuses is fought and often suppressed by small local authorities whose interests are vested in horse-omnibus or tram services. ****** Many tailors state that after their customers buy a motor car their chest measurements increase as much as two inches in a year. They say it is not a question of the use of the chest muscles in driving, so much as the deep-breathing exercises involved in passing rapidly through the air. This, perhaps, explains why so many persons with delicate lungs and weak chests have benefited so considerably by motoring. ****** A letter lies on our desk at the moment of* writing from a friend who as a forlorn hope for tuberculosis took some two years since to motoring. He now writes, " A motor car is a sure cure for consumption. I am perfectly well, have changed from a sallow wreck to a rugged man, look fifteen years younger, and despite my fifty-two years feel like a mere lad." ****** The British Government allows the road tools of Ceylon to be put up at auction annually and sold to the highest bidder. The toll speculator is always a native, and the prices realised by the sale of road tolls has gone up since the motorist appeared on the scene to be mulcted at all possible points on the road. How the moribund Highways Protection League would rejoice at the introduction of this system into Great Britain. 1^ 'V-\ j ****** A solar reflector furnace has been designed for the purpose of obtaining very high temperatures. Temperatures above 3,500° C. — higher than that of the electric furnace — are looked for, says the Engineer. The reflector is built up of 6, 1 70 elementary mirrors, each 122 mm. by 100 mm. (4.8 in. by 3.957 in.), arranged side by side in parallel rows, and are attached by threaded standards to a series of parallel angle irons which run horizontally across the frame. The width at the top is 35ft., at base iBft., and depth 3 eft. With a previously constructed and much smaller furnace on similar lines a temperature of 2,000° C. was obtained. ****** From a census of opinion taken at Olympia we are convinced that the car between 15 and 18-h.p. is destined to be the most popular vehicle for England. It is sufficiently speedy for most, it picks up well after a check and is very suitable for English roads. The " carriage and pair " motorist will, of course, want something livelier, of bigger horse power, but the car we have named is a very suitable type ****** New languages still find supporters. One that is now fast becoming first- favourite is Esperanto. Writing from the Esperanto Club, London, Mr. G. L. Brown states that of the 1200 languages already spoken, " none are suitable for use by all nations." This it is attempted to remedy by Esperanto. Since it may interest our readers we append herewith a sample : — "De tridek jarog en Germanujo tre progresadis la kemiaj industrioj. La valoro de la elportado, kin jam en 1880 superis per 125 milionoj da frankoj la valoron de la enportado, nune superas la enportadon per pli of 230 milionoj." When this is translated it means : " For the last 30 years the chemical industries have very considerably progressed in Germany. The value of the exports, which in 1880 already exceeded the value of the imports by 125 millions of francs, now surpasses the import by more than 230 millions."

" Where there were ten years ago a thousand mockers of the machine which crawled from London to Brighton, there are to-day thousands of motor devotees fascinated by the plastic ease of its movement, the swiftness of its progress, its obedience, and reliability," is the comment of the Daily Chronicle. ****** One notable advance of last year was made by the general and practical plan of quoting a price for cars fitted with all the equipment necessary to make them " ready for the road." The old plan, so much for the chassis, a further sum for the body, and sundry extras for lamps, horns, tyres, etc., was unsatisfactory to most buyers. The fastidious, however, can always specify certain makes of lamps, horns, tyres, and other " etceteras." ****** The Darracq concern has been successfully floated as an English company, at a capital of as preferred ordinary shares, and 5 per cent, debentures. The old 6 per cent, preference capital will be redeemed, but the of ordinary shares will be untouched. The net profits of this great concern for the last three years : £112,313,1 12,313, and respectively. A total of . New spinning mills in England now being erected number 16, and some of these are nearly ready for work. Their total equipment is 1,650,000 spindles, and all will use Egyptian cotton. The average cost of a mill at the present time is about 24/- a spindle. Air hoists are referred to in an article m the Engineering Magazine by F. A. Waldron, who says the air hoist has been developed along the lines which the market has demanded, but except in foundry work, to which it is peculiarly adapted, it is not generally so popular as the electric hoist. It is used in the plunger and motor form, in places where electricity is not obtainable, or where work requiring the use of the hoist will not warrant the expense of an electric installation. ****** The New Zealand Government recently invited tenders — first, for a direct steam service between New Zealand ports and South Africa ; second, for a service between New Zealand ports and South Africa, via Fremantle, with permission to call at one other port in Australia. The steamers are to be fitted with refrigerators to carry frozen meat and produce. The rates of freight from New Zealand to Fremantle are not to exceed the rates current from time to time from Sydney and Melbourne to Fremantle. A deposit of is to accompany each tender, and m the case of the successful tenderer to be returned upon completion of a satisfactory charter. Tenders will be received by the Secretary for Industries and Commerce, Wellington, or the High Commissioner in London. ****** The histoiy of the pendulum practically begins with Galileo's beautiful discovery of the isochronism of the pendulum from the swinging chandelier in the church at Pisa. This discovery was of great value in many respects, but in none more so than in its application to the measurement of time. Soon after that great discovery the English clock maker, Graham, invented the mercurial pendulum, by which the variation in its length caused by the difference in temperature was fully compensated, and some years later, Harrison, another English clock maker, invented a compensated pendulum, which consisted of a series of metal bars having different coefficients of expansion ; so that two hundred years ago, as it is to-day, the pendulum was the nearest perfect of all the devices that have been employed for governing or controlling the motions of a clock mechanism. The above is an extract from a paper read by Ambrose Swasey before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. ****** Spider lines in optical instruments are the only threads available for their special purpose. The spider lines mostly used are from one-fifth to oneseventh of a thousandth part of an inch ( 0002 in. to .00014 m.) in diameter, and m addition to their strength and elasticity, they have the peculiar property of withstanding great changes of temperature ; and often when measuring the sun spots, although the heat is so intense as to crack the len-es of a micrometer eye-piece, the spider lines are not in the least injured. The threads of the silkworm, although of great value as a commercial product, are so coarse and rough compared with the silk of the spider that they cannot be used in such instruments. Platinum wires are made sufficiently fine, and make most excellent cross wires for instruments where low magnifying powers are used, yet as the power increases they become in appearance rough and imperfect. Spider lines, although but a fraction of a thousandth of an inch in diameter, are made up of several thousands of microscopic streams of fluid, which unite and form a single line, and it is because of this that they remain true and

round under the highest magnifying power. An instance of the durability of spider lines is found at the Alleghany Observatory, where the same set of lines in the micrometer of the transit instrument has been in use since 1859. The placing of the spider lines in the micrometers is a work of great delicacy, and in some micrometers there are as many as thirty, which form a reticule, with lines two onethousandths of an inch apart and parallel with each other, under the highest magnifying power. ****** The Panama Canal is likely to be a very costly undertaking for the United States Government, and the time of its building will probably be equal to that of a generation, if present estimates are correct, states Page's Magazine. Mr. F. J. Wallace, the chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission, has reported that a sea-level water-way across the isthmus, although it would cost far more and take much longer to complete than the three other canal projects under consideration, would in the end be best. In his opinion, the cost of the sea-level canal would be about 60,000,000 as against for a o-ft. level canal, and he thinks that twenty years would elapse before its completion, or ten years more than for a canal with locks. ****** The preservation of posts set in concrete is vouched for by Machinery, which regards the use of concrete for this purpose as one of its most interesting applications. A post that is set in the ground unprotected would soon rot away. A wooden post treated with tar and set in a hole on a flat stone and surrounded by a firmly tamped bed of concrete is practically indestructible, and will furnish a sound, substantial foundation for some years to come. The same plan is used to some extent in the setting of iron standards for supporting overhead electric conductors. The small diameter of the pole does not give. the necessary stability to prevent its being racked out of place by the surging of the trolly wire ; but if an ordinary hole dug for such a pole is fitted with concrete, it forms a mass 25 in. or 30 in. in diameter and of a length equal to the depth of the hole, which is solidly united to the pole, giving the latter several times the stability that it would have if set in earth alone. Moreover, the concrete preserves the iron, and it might reasonably be expected that poles so set may rust away above ground before the portion protected by concrete is appreciably affected. ****** The new Lodge and Shiply lathe recognises the electric motoi m its design, states the American Machinist, for an extension of the stool beyond the headstock end is provided to carry the motor, which drives a gear upon a sleeve, concentric with, but not touching, the lathe spindle. This gear takes the place of a belt pulley, which is employed when the lathe is to be belt-driven. In freeing the spindle from all belting a good feature is introduced, and so is the method of combining an electric drive by simply replacing the belt pulley. The lathe spmdle is turned, m fact, by an equal couple by means of a clutch, and there is no driving pressure on its bearings. This must tend both to accuracy of performance and durability. In all classes of machinery, side pressure has been recognised as more or less harmful, and it has been strongly urged as a reason in favour of the cycloidal form of tooth as compared with the involute form, which has been supposed to possess greater lateral thrust. Probably the side thrust has been exaggerated in comparison with the ordinary pressure on the bearings that accompanies any kind of gearing. Of course, says our contemporary, one always wishes to minimise these unbalanced pressures, but it cannot always be so completely effected as by the sleeve pulley of the Lodge and Shiply lathes. ****** For the prevention of sea-sickness, an ingenious apparatus has been introduced by a naval engineer in Hamburg. The method employed is to largely augment the oscillation period of the rolling movement of a ship, and at the same time to diminish the amplitude of oscillation. These effects are based on the gyroscopic action of a flywheel installed on board, and maintaining rapid rotation. A pendulating movement is performed by the vertical axis of the apparatus m the central plane of the ship. On account of the rapid, continuous oscillations of the wheel, the vessel is rendered insensitive to the effect of wave motion so as to practically eliminate any rolling movement. Among gramaphone users the new post card record is much in demand. This interesting novelty which is now obtainable m Melbourne, consists of an ordinary picture postcard, on one side of which is attached a small thin disc record of a celluloidlike substance. The card can be transmitted by post, and is usable by the recipient in any gramaphone.